Estimate the Size of the FIC

I think I have figured it out.


Prokofy, arriving fresh from TSO, sees a world full of potential sprinkled with a few problems. Land tools that aren't as powerful as people would like, objectionable builds, lag, and more were all just some of the issues that have been with us from the beginning of time.

In searching for avenues to resolve these problems, it struck him: create an imaginary class of people, the FIC. If he could show that the FIC prohibited exapansion and growth of Second Life, he could instantly create a name for himself on a level equal or greater than that of the FIC. The biggest challenge would be to show that FIC is real.

The phrase and definition of FIC are tossed around the forums for weeks, people denying the existance of FIC. In response to the percieved negative label that FIC stands for, one by one, people begin to take ownership of FIC through humor. First, we see propoganda posters, then FIC pins, official logos, etc. With each step, people take more and more ownership of FIC to a point where it becomes real and tangible. The challenge is over, a new class is minted.

The next step in the diabolical plot is to take control of this newly minted class, the FIC. Through forum posts, the FIC is villianized as anti-newbie, anti-business, socialist, etc., etc. New players joining the world hear of the privelaged class of players with special ties into the Lindens and resentment grows. The plan is now in full swing. The FIC are villians.

Prokofy will always be credited with the creation of 'FIC' and now all Prokofy has to do is show that he's been attempting to wrestle the FIC, and the plan will be complete. The founder and leader of FIC, Prokofy, shows his tenacity on the forums for challenging the unruly and out of control class. Slowly, the flamewars die down and the war is won.

Prokofy has become the leader of the FIC, the most powerful, connected, privelaged class in the history of SL.



See Prokofy, I got you figured out!


This story, of course, is not true and should not be considered valid in any degree. In other words, its a JOKE.

You're not the only who felt the same way about it. There were quite a few people who thought it was out of line. Unfortunately, the alternative was inaction. Prokofy completely and utterly defied anyone who suggested that he stop personally attacking everyone who came within reach. Rather than listening to their suggestions with an open ear, he immediately attacked them and accused them of conspiring against him. In the end, every reasonable attempt had been made to get him to calm down. Though privately ignoring him would mean no longer slogging through 10 inches of bullshit, we would still have to endure a world splattered with the rhetorical feces of his insatiable ego. At that point, coordinated action was a shot worth taking.

Condemn me if you will. I do not pretend to be an aggrieved victim, nor do I feign innocence. I am quite willing to act against someone whom I feel is detrimental to the world as a whole.

The existence of a "FIC" is very real. Having been a member of this "insider" ring, I can tell you this for a fact. Every game, every job, every social circle, has one.

However, I do believe that any member of this group, what the hell let's call it FIC, is MORE inclined to do good than your typical player, and is under considerably closer scrutiny than your average evil doer. Believe me, if you cause any ripples of any kind at all, you will be removed by the (typically) alts that embody most of this class of resident, and they will have nothing to do with you from that point on. LL has no problem with that at all. Members of "FIC" tend to keep to themselves and often out of the concerns of the average resident.

There is a class of player that is not involved with the "FIC", but that does indeed do many of the negative things Prok seems to associate them with. He is mistaken; none of those players that are visibly extorting land or attempting to game the economy are "FIC". He needs another name for a different sort of player. May I propose "metagriefer".

2.5 years as a resident, an extremely active beta tester, and former member of Tyrell Corporation, I know exactly what I'm talking about.

Ok, this is getting just a tad old of a topic.

You may ignore at your convenience.

But it seems we...must...all...push...the...button...no...control...helpless...to...ignore....topic...

Wow, i'm in the FIC? I don't even know how to script!

I loves the shiny though, maybe that did it...

Einsman may be right about this topic....



Will someone come up with the next fad please?

Originally posted by me.

You may ignore at your convenience.

But it seems we...must...all...push...the...button...no...contr ol...helpless...to...ignore....topic...

Please move on to the next fad...unless you have a vested interest in turning this one off.

Yeah I agree Tcoz.
There are some LL "secret" stuff that happens here.

I've mentioned at lease one constant TOS violation that is "winked & nodded" all the time - and I know it from my personal experience with LL.

But hey - nothing can be done about it cause they own the wire-that-fuels-the Grid.

Why do I feel like I'm in a hypnotist's office?

pandastrong underoos. I am on it.

And I liked it better when SL was a cold desert wasteland. Empty and devoid of meaning or direction where savage tribes engaged in vicious battles for survival and acceptance.

It was better back then... fewer people...

fewer people telling me what SecondLife is.

It was great.

*sigh*

...

And in them.

Sign me up for ANYTHING that brings you closer to my crotch.

Merwan, it's always good when somebody agrees, thank you. But, please don't take my post out of context...remember I mentioned that such players typically are more inclined to do good rather than evil.

Do they get some leeway here and there? Sure. It would be foolish to deny it. But I don't think any of this leeway is causing the kinds of problems that are indicated as being the result of "FIC" actions.

There's a different class of player out there, one that is entirely uninterested in SL as a community, and solely interested in SL as a soulless number crunching sometime money making device. But, the game mechanics are built that way. Moreso since LL has endorsed the use of travelling, self-replicating land scanners and have stated that virtually all info in the game is public.

I have always, always said, and people for some reason always tell me it's not true, but it gets proven again and again...if you give players the capability, they will use it to the extreme. They will not ignore it in the best interests of the overall state of the game. I've seen it a thousand times. When Phil said that his faith was bruised I couldn't help but sorrowfully chuckle and shake my head.

Is it possible some of the "FIC" alts are this sort of player? Possible yes, but unlikely. I suppose LL would have to be unaware of them in all regards, and that's probably not the easiest thing to do.

Direct proof of "FIC", however, is a TOS violation involving privacy, since the most compelling proof is identifying a Linden alt. Believe me, even if you've been wronged, that gets shut RIGHT down.

Jake, you're right, it's like high school, and I'd be inclined to agree, that those screaming the loudest aren't always the *actual* FIC but the wannabees, the second tier, the B group, who need to show they are "more FIC than thou*. They have the time to post all the day long. True FIC only parachute in from their fascinating RL jobs and sex lives and their high-octane SL careers and romances. Forums are for chumps, no?

Cristiano, read what Jake put. You made such a long list because you included just too many wannabees. That's why it came out too long, duh. I won't embarrass anybody by pointing out they are only on the waiting list for FIC now, and not even shortlisted...but there you have it...it's just too long a list.

I could add that the polls are running ahead now with the category 12-48 drawing the largest number of votes. So that's probably about right, but I never categorized it

The great boon of The Shunning was that it got all these mediocre minds with their asshats and their fruit pictures to simmer down for awhile so that adults could go on talking to each other. I think as out-of-line Lindar Lehane is, at least when you argue with him, you put down a fact and a rhetorical flourish, he puts down a fact and a rhetorical flourish, and it goes along normally. He might threaten to put you on mute when he's tired but the thread still goes along normally, with no giant pictures of junk and stupid trash talk and FUCK YOU written in big letters.

The great thing about when someone puts you on ignore is they stop their personal attacks on you, so you have no need to fend them off.

I know it is the Conventional Wisdom that Prokofy is mean and vicious and personally attacks people. But I've never had a post removed, and I've never been banned for what I wrote on the forums. That's important to remember. That's not the case with some of my detractors.

This Received Wisdom is a powerful force. Most people know it from hearsay only, because they don't actually read the forums, and when they even glance at my posts, they don't read them. There is an impression that I am arrogant and an asshole to people, but I personally think it's a lot of hogwash. I think they're projecting. I think I push back, and they are so startled to have that happen to them -- they've been feted in the first lots, if not just in their second lives, and they are infuriated at someone interrupting the fete-flow.

Like a typical example will work this way: somebody arrogantly and flippantly counters your argument about large tracts of land tending to be on the auction by pasting in a list just from that day showing small tracts of land on the auction. So you go and paste back to him as a rebuttal the five previous days on the auction all showing figures like 8k or 13k or 16k. In other words, you demolish his petty and arrogant argument in a flash. Instead of just slinking away, in his arrogance, he says you're "impossible" and he is "putting you on mute" and probably insults your mother and kids while he's at it and tries to distract in every way from the fact that you were right.

That is so often the trend. You best somebody in a debate, you point out their flawed arugments, you call them on their attitudes and prejudices, and you get them furious. So they accuse you of a personal attack, and usually respond by making a personal attack on you -- then in fending them off and rebutting them, people think you are "mean" and "vicious".

I think forum-watchers if they were honest would be hard-put to find personal attacks originating from me as a notion in a thread. Instead, they see witch-hunts and gang-ups from people that can't accept either that they are wrong, i.e. their arguments are weak and trounced, or that they have a different opinion than you, but yours is still valid. Then I might respond by being as biting as possible.

But it isn't my name on the thread origin of things like entire polls, comments, queries, etc. all with my name in it -- a supposed violation of forum ROC but one laxly disciplined. It isn't me starting a thread about an entire category of people, i.e TSO players, and slamming them roundly to get at one person. It isn't me posting mean, vicious, non-sequiturs trying to imply something about someone's RL based on purloined info. That's not me doing any of those things. That's you.

Don't blame the mirror if you have a crooked face.

the fic is an unfalsifiable theory of sl.

you can't disprove it because:

1. the primary judge of the theory won't allow it.
   
2. it's very hard to prove the non-existence of something.
   
3. the attempted category is so large (in the order of the sl population) that the theorist's proposed characteristics of the fic are indeed present to some small degree. but this is true for every sufficiently large population; which is to say that the attempted category is meaningless.
   

I have two questions:

1. These land scanners you mention. There are new players coming to my house daily looking for land, because Azure Islands comes up first on the list, with 0 as the price; God knows I don't understand it, and neither do they, so I just explain how OUR land works, except for the 0 part, which makes it look like it's all free and it isn't, and then don't know what else to tell them.

I say, "look for 'first land'," and they tell me there isn't any. I look and lo and behold, they are right. (Being a basic member, I never tried to buy land outright.)

Then there is something called "auctions," which is apparently where LL puts land for auctioning on? Or regular people put land up for auction? Or both? So that all the auction land will actually cost more than the (falsely) promised first land?

But in any case, there doesn't seem to be any land listed that is actually the 512 land you get to claim as a beginning player. As far as I can tell, that's a con, cause there isn't any! Am I wrong?

Now, the reason there isn't any, if there isn't, is that because players with these land scanners scoop it up right away?

Remember, due to where I live, I end up trying to help an awful lot of new players considering I'm so new myself, so any explanation would be appreciated; also any advice I could give these new players.

2. In TSO, we always wanted more players. Here, however, I keep getting the distinct impression that y'all really don't want more players. In fact, you wish most of us would go away. Do you think there's truth to that? I think there is, but I also think that a bunch of new players is just what you're going to get, lol.

coco

I don't really know land scanners but I can answer this one:



I think most people that have chatted with me know I am a very social person. The more the merrier.

This is true!! The first time I met aimee IW she gave me a hug and then 5 min later started humping my leg!

???

I am going to give you 50% off on a pair of pandastrong underoos. This is a B group special, so inventory will be moving fast. Don't miss out on this opportunity!

I guess you never read my blogs. I never cared about the objectionable builds at all. I just observed and wandered around. You don't know me, and you're just making stuff up. I merely took up the fight of some residents when I sold or rented land to them much later, to be protected from GRIEFER builds -- not newbie builds, not incompetent oldbie builds, but the kind of nasty-fuck builds that fill up an entire bay, when someone has an entire audience on a mainland, and postures and threatens and makes some big-ass black building completely darkening the horizon just to show you he's boss, or some towering monster on a 512 with nothing inside it, that exist to make the spinning, lighted, glowing words GIRLZ more visible for hundreds of miles around -- that sort of thing.

I never cared about the land tools either probably for like 5 months until first I began to personally experience what it was like to have treacherous officers and second when I saw how this hobbled people from cooperating more easily in the game to do a whole variety of things from making a commons to divy up prims gradually or securing the view on neighbouring sims.



No, I don't blame outside forces for my problems, I work hard to accommodate to difficulties and overcome them daily. You really have no idea what I do because I think you've visited perhaps one or two of my properties and never really seen what I'm working on. It's so much easier to spout here on the forums with all your half-baked college psych psychobabble crap, hmmm? And that isn't a "personal attack" and being "vicious" Juro, it's just telling the truth here -- claiming this oft-recited Sim-Arts/Traxx Hathor version of the story of the Floundering Prok Unable to Adapt, which you aborbed at some SimArts gossip session soon after their appearance in the game from TSO, has just "stuck" and you can't let it go. I assure you I don't flounder. When I do flounder, I don't care, it's ok to flounder, especially when new. It doesn't give me some kind of inferiority complex -- which is the underlying thesis you're peddling here after being loaded up with all the crap from the SimArts/Ingrid/Traxx etc. Theory of the Case which is that if I don't become an architect like them -- or you -- in this game, then I must be crap, and I must be floudering. You really need to question what's up with that.

I wasn't an architect in TSO. I built little worlds to make themes or atmosphere but they were always satirical or fun, not competent. When I had an entry in the Johnny Lace contest, it was an illustration of a J.D. Salinger story with literary references, "The Inverted Forrest," with odd things in it but it wasn't some architectural Frank Lloyd Wright triumph.

The Internet is a great leveler. It brings together lots of different kinds of people. They aren't always the best and the most competent. That's OK. It gives people a dimension in which to dream and the outcome of that might mean more creativity for the world -- really, it remains to be seen. The Internet also brings to the fore a lot of incompetence and mediocrity, and one thing this type of world does is make it possible for people who are real nothings in RL to become famous stars and designers here. That's fun. But it can also mean they tend to be insecure in their status, knowing they aren't these things "in RL".

Yours -- and their -- need to constantly drill on this theme with me -- Prok As Flounderer, unable to build, unable to adapt, unable to get the land tools to fulfill his dreams of being a real estate tycoon blah blah -- only tells me more about you than it tells anything about me.



I think LL tried to head the thing off at the pass with various Linden-sponsored interventions, Lindens saying there is no FIC, Pathfinder making a FIC decoder ring, the Lindens at the switch putting "Member of FIC" into the member status box of every resident on April Fool's Day (roundly defeated as an effort by the fact that "FIC FOUNDER" then defaulted to some of the boxes I guess that had "Charter Member" LOL.



Actually, you got that bit wrong. The FIC is one thing. The anti-business climate is wider, including both FIC and not-FIC. It's a reality.

Villains? I'll say. Somebody got to the Lindens and told them there is "too much Tringo" and got them to fuck up the events scheduling. Somebody got to the Lindens and got them to throw out events grants expect by essentially FIC educators (later modifications to this didn't fix it). Somebody got the Lindens all in a kerfluffle about the land/lease/sales on the private islands. Now to be sure, to some extent the Lindens come to these bad ideas on their own, but they have a ready and willing Greek Chorus always willing to wail about the overcommercialization of SL. So, yeah, somebody takes action and messes these things up for significant classes of people, really harming their game enjoyment. I think that's wrong.



LOL. That's a fun story Juro, but where is it? A lot of the time I can't even get my game to log on without getting a dumb message about DNS and how I'm not connected to the Internet, when I am.



See Prokofy, I got you figured out!

short list:
http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis1/p21-pe07.html
http://www.angelfire.com/zine2/narcissism/narcissism_checklist.html

really long read but translates from psychologese to english for the most part.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
subtopic:
how to recognize a narcissist

There are first land plots available, unless LL is just behind in marking them off. Last time I looked there were tons.



The Auction is on this website and is LL auctioning off new land, or released land. Players are unable to post land to be auctioned on this site. And yes, it does inflate the cost, and they do tend to sell mostly in large hunks so that land barons can buy them and chop them up for a profit.



Hmm..there should be..and no, other players can't swoop in and purchase them. I'll have to wait till I get in-world to see for sure.



I think most SL residents love seeing new faces. I try to warmly welcome any new players I see in-world. There are some growing pains. The world has expanded so fast that it may (and does) seem a bit overwhelming to some of the older players. And some, less-than-sociable types might not like all the new kids moving into the neighborhood. But overall, i think most folks, even those in the forums, are happy to see SL growing at a good pace.